


Like Glitter and Gold

by Resri



Series: How Yondu got himself a shiny boyfriend [2]
Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: (that always seems to be a tag with me), Aleta hates (loves) it, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Kree (Marvel), M/M, Marty has to take care of newly freed Yondu, Marty is long suffering, Ravager-typical violence, Slow Burn, Stakar adopts way too many kids, Yondex, and boy does he
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-02-08
Packaged: 2019-02-17 23:48:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13088010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Resri/pseuds/Resri
Summary: There's a newly freed and heavily traumatized ex-slave in med bay. The same one that had taken the captain hostage and demanded to be ferried to the nearest port, only to get adopted by said captain. And now, Martinex of all people is supposed to be his care taker. Like he hasn't enough to do as first mate and occasional designated pilot of one Stakar Ogord.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have decided to fling myself into rare pair hell to join the wonderful Havicat, so he isn't all alone. To blame are Havicat and AbominableSnowDude. This is for you <3

_“Look after him, Marty.”_

The captain's words ring through his head as he looks at the cowering man who endures the doctors' prodding with stiff muscles and vacant eyes.  
Earlier, the CMO said he is around 20, so more a boy than a man, and that he is Centaurian. Martinex had to look Centaurians up, since they are even more rare than Pluvians. The intergalactic lexicon of sentient species had informed him that they were among the top ten of endangered species, and that there should have been a dorsal crest where a nasty, silver scar cleaves his back in two. Little, knobbly protrusions that may be the remnants of vertebrae stick out of the scar tissue. Two Kree family sigils are branded on each side of his spine, and the rest is crisscrossed with scars. 

It's not the first time that Martinex has met a battle slave. They've had enough altercations with the Kree and their hoards of cannon fodder to make him wary of their guest even if he hadn't been present for the show earlier. But Stakar, who has brought many terrified, starved people aboard to give them medical aid and food before dropping them off in some Nova refugee camp, has decreed that this one is here to stay. 

They found him when they raided a Kree transport ship that was delivering weaponry to the front, but instead of guns they discovered a storage bay full of slaves. Nobody's really surprised that the Kree would title about 200 people as cargo. It didn't make the sight of drugged, flayed beings in boxes any easier.  
The Kree, of course, opened the cages and sicced them on the Ravagers. While most of the slaves did as they were told, this one had thrown himself at his overseer and ripped out his throat. With his teeth.  
Apparently the custom of filing the battle slaves' chompers can have its' drawbacks.  
Afterwards, he pilfered the overseer for a gun and a box made of red metal, and when trying to open the box by smashing it against the floor proved unsuccessful, fired at who ever crossed his path on the way to the nearest hangar. Luckily, the energy clip of the blaster was empty by the time the boy reached it, and therefore he had to sneak around the retreating Ravagers. That had not stopped him from posturing, though. When he stowed away on Stakar's m-ship and was discovered shortly after they cleared the Kree freighter, he followed the age old rule of “Fake it 'til you make it,” and pretended that his gun could still blow holes into heads, which resulted in a hostage situation. The hostage being Stakar himself.  
Martinex, and the rest of the team that was riding with them, had watched helplessly as the boy had an arm around the captain's throat and the gun pressed to his temple, giving them orders in lower Kree. 

The tide turned fast when the solar wings on Stakar's shoulders flared to life, simmering with the rage of a thousand suns. With a scream, the slave had wrenched his arms away, the skin where he touched the wings blistering, and Stakar whirled around and disarmed him with a soldier's precision. He flopped to the floor, and Stakar leveled the newly acquired blaster at him. Everybody in the room had taken a step closer, but captain waved them off. 

“You got balls, I give you that,” he rumbled, and when the slave started to get to his feet, he'd added, “Stay down!”  
The boy didn't listen, and Stakar aimed for his knee and pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. The clip was empty. Captain had barely enough time to blink stupidly at the gun before the boy dived for his legs. They'd both tumbled to the ground and started wrestling, and finally Marty and co. could intervene. It took four of them to pull them apart, because while Stakar is a terrifying opponent in the ring, he doesn't usually fight with the desperation of a battle slave. Not many do. 

They held down thrashing limbs, doing their best to stay out of biting range, and turned to Stakar for orders. The captain of the Ravagers looked on in stunned bemusement. 

“Captain?” Martinex asked. 

“That little fucker held me hostage with an empty blaster,” Stakar said, and then started laughing. At that moment, Marty knew that they would gain a new crew member. He just didn't know that he'd be personally responsible for him. 

It was impossible to calm the man down, caught up in berserk mode, helped along with a fair amount of drugs, so they stunned him. When he came back to his senses in the med bay, he took one look at the medical equipment and doctors he was surrounded by, and went limp again. Nothing of his brutal energy remained, all that was left was defeat.  
Stakar had been there, and at the boy's look had sent the doctors away. He talked to him quietly for nearly an hour. It ended when he clapped the boy on the shoulder, and received a nod. 

On his way out, Stakar passed his first mate, and had murmured, “Look after him, Marty.” 

Martinex tries not to show the dread he's feeling when he looks back at the boy.  
He's glassy eyed and silent like all the others before him, scared of loud noises and sudden movements and doctors, and creepily compliant. 

Martinex, of all people, is supposed to be his care taker. Like he hasn't enough to do as first mate and occasional designated pilot of one Stakar Ogord. Plus, and it's a fact he has been steadily repeating in his mind with increasing panic, he has absolutely no idea how to handle a newly freed and heavily traumatized ex-slave. 

Unfortunately, the doctors finish up, having mended everything without hearing a single peep from their patient. On his way out of the little private room, the CMO tells Martinex, “He gotta stay here for the night, just to be sure an' all. We wrapped the burns on his arms, and hooked him up to an IV 'cause he was dehydrated. He shouldn't eat anything today until we're sure all the drugs are outa his system, but tomorrow he needs the nutrient paste from the special stock. For malnourishment.” With that, the CMO follows the rest of his staff out, the door closes, and Marty is alone with his charge. 

The Centaurian sits motionless, keeping his eyes on the floor. Even from the other side of the room, Marty can see that he is tense as a bow string. He can't blame him, but it's all a little unnerving. 

_Here goes nothing_ , he thinks, and makes his way over to the bed. Blue coils up even tighter. It looks painful. 

“Hi,” Marty says a little awkwardly. The Centaurian's eyes flick over to him quickly, snap away, return, and track over his features. He stares for a long moment, but when he notices Marty looking back, making eye contact, fear flashes over his face and he relocates his gaze to the floor. The first mate is a little confused before it dawns on him that a slave probably gets punished for openly staring at their masters. He says, in as gentle a voice as he can, “Hey, no, it's okay. I'm sure you haven't seen many Pluvians before. You're not the first one to be surprised. I know I'm one hell of a beaut.” 

The joke falls flat, and they sit in awkward silence for a bit, but finally, and very very hesitantly, the Centaurian looks up again, mustering him out of the corner of his eye. Then, to Marty's boundless surprise, he actually speaks for the first time since coming aboard. 

He murmurs,“You're shiny,” so quietly that Marty can barely hear it. That doesn't stop him from smiling brightly, and answering, “I sure am, buddy.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marty tries to talk to the new guy... and fails horribly.

Martinex sits with him for another hour or so, tells him about Pluvians and their shininess, about the Ravagers and their code, about the work on a ship. Blue stays mostly silent and nods at the right moments, but he listens attentively. It takes a while for Marty to realize that he doesn't know the guy's name. He asks him, and after a bit of prodding he gets the quiet, mumbled answer, “Y77 9K4 90Q, master.” Marty cringes so hard that not even his crystalline features can hide it, and the Centaurian shrinks away from him. Muscles that have slowly relaxed over the course of the past hour go tense again like he expects a punch. Marty quickly schools his features, and stutters, “Sorry, I was only... you can't- I mean, you don't have to call me master. I'm not your master. I'm your _boss_.”

Blue musters him carefully, not relaxing in the slightest. There's confusion on top of weariness now. 

“What's the difference?” he finally asks. 

“It means I don't own you,” Marty answers a little desperately, trying to find the right words. “It means you get money in exchange for your work, and that you can leave any time you want if you don't want to follow my orders.” 

The guy doesn't look like he really understands, but nods and murmurs, “Yes, boss.”

He says boss like he said master, in a tone that makes Marty's heart clench painfully. _He'll learn_ , Marty thinks, and smiles sadly at him. 

“What I meant earlier wasn't the number the Kree gave you. I wanna know your name. You know, from before.” 

“Before what?” 

“Before the Kree.”

The Centaurian frowns, then looks away, glaring at the floor. His shoulders jerk once in an aborted shrug, and he says, “There was no before.” 

Martinex stares, slowly processing the implications of that statement. It makes his guts turn. That is possible since he is, contrary to popular believe, all soft and gooey on the inside, like everybody else. 

This whole conversation is one giant m-ship wreck. He really really sucks at this. 

It takes effort to keep his voice and face calm when he tries to remove his foot from his mouth and answers, “Alright, I'm just gonna call you Blue for now. Okay? Okay.” 

For a teeny, tiny moment, Blue gives him a look that conveys clearly what he thinks of this very unoriginal moniker, but it disappears as fast as it came to leave behind blankness. He says, “Yes, boss.”

Both of them are exhausted from the day, so Marty excuses himself. On his way to the officer quarters he has an idea though, and changes directions. The hangar is never completely empty, not even during night shift. Some rookies scrub a giant puddle of machine oil on one of the gangways. Two unlucky mechanics work on the chief gunner's m-ship, who believes you only have to doge a missile if it's been fired by a gun bigger than yours. Since she makes sure that Stakar's Ravagers always have the best weaponry, ships and crew alike, she doesn't do much evading. More than one mechanic has been on the brink of tears when she came trundling back from a dog fight, escorted by the hysteric pilots who had the duty to keep her from exploding, laughing like a madwoman with a third of her bird's hull missing. 

“Jab's ship is holier than the code,” Marty said once. “Get it? Holy-er?” 

Stakar had not appreciated the pun. 

When Marty passes them they pound their chests with a, “Night, sir,”. He nods back, and walks up to Stakar's bird. As first mate he has access, had it ever since he got hired by a drunken and frantic Stakar to act as his pilot and ended up flying for their life as, the second they cleared orbit, a whole Shi'ar fleet had dropped out of hyper space and started firing.  
Good times, good times.  
Inside, he finds what he's looking for without trouble. Blue's collar still lies where it dropped. Stakar snipped it once their guest had lost consciousness, and everybody had been too busy afterwards to care about it. Now it's there, its inside discolored with old blood and grime, scuffed from chafing against skin. Even after the locking mechanism was broken open, the hinges had been stuck from disuse. They finally buckled through brute force. Marty looks at it in disgust.  
It's weird, how such a small ring of metal can be so menacing, exuding an aura of pain and hatred and desolation. 

The metal is cool in his hands when he examines it until he finds the little slit at the back. There should be a data chip in it, holding all the information necessary to identify a slave. The Kree like a thorough documentation, because the merchandise sells better if you can proof a certain heritage or body stats. Additionally, unit and personal numbers of battle slaves are often recorded on them so that scanners can automatically count them when they return from the fields of slaughter. It's fast and gets reliable numbers for the Kree to plan their next moves with. 

Hopefully it can also be used to find more information about Blue's origins. Marty extracts the chip and vows to do research when he has some free time. 

On his way out of the hangar, he passes the night shift supervisor, and hands him the collar. “Melt this thing down immediately. I don't wanna see it again.”

“Yessir,” comes the crisp reply, and Marty goes to bed. 

~

The next morning he enters med bay with a plate of nutrient paste and a flask of water. The CMO grunts, “Tell him to eat it slowly, 'cause if he guzzles it down and hurls all over my med bay, you'll be the one cleaning it up.” After a moment, he tacks on a “Sir,” and wanders off. Martinex glares after him, but lets it go. The doctors are mostly outside of the chain of command, and they know it. 

He knocks on the door to the private room. No reply. Maybe their Centaurian was so exhausted that he's still asleep. The next knocks are a little louder. Still no reply, but there is definitely something moving behind the door. 

“Blue?” Marty asks dubiously. 

“Yeah?” comes the muffled reply from inside. 

“Can I come in or what?” 

“Yes, boss.” 

Marty pushes the door open and peers into the room, just to make sure Blue isn't lurking in a corner ready to pounce.  
He isn't. He sits in the bed, staring at Marty with a raised eyebrow. The medical equipment is either gone or pushed against the far wall, turned off. Someone has gotten Blue scrubs and a loose undershirt. He's pulling at the hem uncomfortably.

“What's up?” Marty asks carefully. It earns him a frown, and a shrug. “You hungry?” A hesitant nod. Marty steps into the room and lets the door slide shut behind him. He hands the plate over to Blue, admonishes him to eat it slowly, and drops into the visitor chair. It's still where he left it last night, far enough away from the bed to not crowd the occupant. 

Blue bends over his gooey nutrient pulp, and after giving the spoon a look like it's a venomous animal, starts slurping straight from the bowl. 

“Uhm,” Marty says, and Blue stops, but doesn't unbend from over his food. If anything, he grips the bowl tighter. 

“That's a spoon,” he says intelligently, and points at the discarded eating utensil. “You use it to scrape food up and get it to your mouth.” 

Blue's frown transforms into an outright scowl, and he snarls, “I know that, I ain't stupid!” with the kind of vitriol he used to order the Ravagers to alter the course while pressing a gun to Stakar's temple. It only lasts for the blink of an eye, then his brows smooth over, and haunted eyes turn to stare at his lap. He hunches in on himself and clenches his bowl so tightly that his knuckles go pale. 

“Oh,” Marty replies, and adds uncertainly, “Why- why aren't you using it?” 

“Because cutlery is for people,” Blue says with an odd inflection, like it's a quote, or something he had to recite plenty of times. 

It takes surprisingly long for Marty to find his voice again. Then he says quietly, but with fervor, “You're people, too.”

“No, I'm not. Only people eat with cutlery, and if the masters give me cutlery and I use it, it means that I don't know my place and need to be punished,” he answers, giving Marty a look like he's the idiot for trying to trick him. 

“This wasn't a test!” Marty exclaims, but Blue doesn't appear convinced. Seconds pass like hours, the silence hanging heavy over their heads. The first mate is at a loss for words, the Centaurian coiled tight and awaiting his judgment. 

_I can't do this, shit, what do I do, what do I say, fuck._

“Finish your food,” Marty finally tells him, and with a quiet, “Yes boss,” Blue goes back to slurping his gruel.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter I thought this story was gonna be sweet and nice, but look what happened.  
> A foot was succesfully inserted into a mouth.
> 
> Comments make the sun shine through my window and warm my heart


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Blue gets his leathers, and something more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credit for the idea that rookies have to survive a month before they are real Ravagers with all the rights goes to Write_like_an_American, who is brilliant <3

Walking around in washed out scrubs would already make Blue stick out in the sea of navy leathers during morning rush, even if he wasn't clinging to the first mate's coat tails. The fact that by now the entire ship has heard of the little slave who managed to take on the captain with nothing but an empty gun doesn't help. People stare, and they don't even try to be subtle about it.  
Blue's expression is dark, his scowl aimed at the floor. He stays so close to Marty that he nearly walks into him when Marty stops in the middle of an intersection and declares loudly, so all the gawkers can hear, “Since you people obviously don't got enough to do, how about you spend your next off shifts scrubbing?” 

That gets them moving pretty fast. For good measure Marty changes the roster of everyone who's faces he knows the name to anyway. Then he leads the way down another two floors. 

“We're going to the tailor and get you a set of leathers. Every Ravager has them,” he says to his shadow, who walks on bare, silent feet. It makes Marty nervous, and he has to turn around every now and then to check that his charge is still there. _Boots_ , he thinks, _He gets boots, too_. 

When they reach the tailor's rooms, one of the bosun's guys is getting his leathers fixed. Marty barks, “Out,” and the man scuttles away with a quick pound to the chest. The tailor sits in her ancient leather chair that's as old school as her, holding the discarded coat, and raises an eyebrow at the first mate. 

“I was nearly done with him,” she says testily, and gets to her feet with creaking joints. “Anyway. What can I do for you, sir?” 

“This here is Blue. He needs to be fitted.” 

“So you're our newest crew member?” the Xeronian asks, mustering the Centaurian. “I've heard a lot about you.” 

She starts circling him, and Blue turns with her. “Hold still,” she squawks, trying to take a hold of his shoulders. Blue simply steps out of her reach. She makes to follow, but Blue evades her again and growls. Honest to god growls. The tailor finally gets the message and stays away, shooting Marty a look. He does his best not to laugh. Neither of them would have appreciated it.

“Blue,” he says instead, and his charge immediately freezes. “That is Elim. She is our tailor, that means she makes our clothing. You have to hold still, so she can take your measurements to make you leathers that fit.”  
Blue eyes Elim for a moment, who waits more or less patiently. Then he nods, and lets her step closer. Not a muscle moves, and his expression is fixed in that perpetual scowl. Hopefully, there will be something else but fear or irritation on that face some day. 

After Elim's done two rounds, looking at him from every side and tugging at his scrubs, she says, “We gonna feed him up a bit, right? 'Cause taking all his measurements now will be a waste of time if he won't stay this skinny. I got something half way fitting for him in storage I think, and he'll be grown out of it in a month.” 

It's probably true. Blue is underfed and wiry. While he has muscle on him – a necessity for a battle slave – there is not a gram of fat to be seen. But he's the kind of broad shouldered that suggest he could strike an imposing figure with the right diet and time. 

“Then give him the spare leathers,” Marty decides. “I'll bring him back for a real fitting.” 

She scuttles off into the adjoining room. After giving Blue another once over, who is still doing an impressive ice statue act, Marty leans against a wall and fishes his data pad out of a coat pocket to go over his duties for the day. He wonders which he can do with a tag along. For the most part, he's gotta make some rounds. A check up on engineering after the plasma leak from a few days ago, weapons training with the new set of high tech blasters Mujabah secured for them, and a bridge shift. The last one could be a problem. 

“Hey Blue, there a chance you can read star charts?” 

“No,” is the curt reply. 

Well, you can always hope, right? Marty glances up at his charge. “Reading or writing at all?” 

Blue gives him a _look_. The kind that implies that Marty's an idiot. Of course he can't read. Why would a battle slave know how to read? Marty puts lessons on his mental Blue-list, and wonders what kind of job he could give him to keep him busy and out of the way on the bridge. Or could he dump him on somebody else with a work more suitable to his skills? The real question is: Can he leave him alone on his first day? After what just happened with Elim, the answer is probably no. And anyway, captain told Marty to take care of him, so he will do that personally. He can find a replacement for the one shift. That Xandarian from the outer colonies they picked up a few months ago seemed to have a solid head on his shoulders, he could do with some bridge training. 

Elim comes back, laden with navy leathers and a pair of boots. She holds first the jacket, then the pants against Blue, who looks so very confused by the proceedings. 

“Ay, they should fit alright. Get outa those rags and put these on, boy,” she tells him and steps back. Blue hesitates only until he gets an encouraging nod from Marty, then he shucks off his clothes.  
The undressing goes quick and without any shame, but considering they found him in nothing but a ratty pair of pants like all the other slaves with him, it shouldn't be all that surprising. Privacy, or even being anywhere near decent, must be a novelty for him.  
While the cause for this is something that makes Marty's insides churn with anger, the result is a useful one on a Ravager ship. There are way too many genders in the universe to have a shower block for every single one of them. Everyone's gonna see you naked at some point. Sometimes in the reaches of deep space when water has to be rationed, even captain and first mate have to leave their private bathrooms behind for the communal 'freshers. 

Once Blue stands there in his underwear, he takes the leather pants offered to him carefully, like he expects them to bite. They are at least two sizes too big, but a belt remedies the matter. The Undershirt, a thick pullover, and a jacket hang off him, too, but the tailor just tuts and says, “Go and eat something, boy, then they'll fit you in no time.” Then she addresses Marty, “I'll try and dig up a second set of underthings fer him. We're a bit low on material right now after that last throng of rookies came through, but I'll do my best.” 

“Thanks, Elim,” Marty says in Blue's stead, and turns to leave. 

She waves them off, but then catches something and calls, “Oh, wait a second, sir.” She walks over to Blue and taps his shoulder where the Flame With Seven Tongues sits. 

“I forgot to take the flame off of the jacket.” 

Blue is new, and rookies don't wear the Ravager flame. Only after they've survived their first month aboard, and have proven that they'll stick around long enough that learning their names isn't a waste of brain cells, they get the flame patches for their leathers, and can call themselves Ravagers. But it's already there, and Blue looks like he has no idea what's happening, but is worried that it's still his fault somehow. 

“Leave it on,” Marty commands, and Elim retreats with a shrug. It looks good where it is. Right, somehow. And anyway, Blue isn't really a rookie. Rookies don't usually get the first mate as their personal care taker. 

Marty leads the way, Blue follows. His steps are still very soft, even with the boots, but at least he can hear him now and doesn't have to turn around every ten steps. 

“Is she my boss, too?” Blue breks the silence suddenly. His tone is quiet, but curious enough. 

“Huh?” is the intelligent reply. 

“Elim,” Blue says, tipping his head back the way they came from. 

“Well, she's the tailor,” Marty answers, a little surprised. “She doesn't really have a rank, but she's someone you shouldn't piss off if you ever want to have clothes that actually fit.” 

Blue nods. There is no understanding in his eyes. Marty rephrases his answer. “She is not your boss, since she is not in the chain of command. But if you're clever you still don't piss her off, because while she can't give orders, she has an important job that can affect you.” 

This time it works better. Maybe. A little. At least that's what Marty tells himself. They keep walking, taking first one, then another lift down to the engineering level. In that second one, Marty catches Blue staring. Of course, the Centaurian looks away immediately, but his eyes stray back after only a moment. 

“If you wanna know something, ask. I'll explain it as best as I can,” he tells him with a smile that he hopes comes across. When your face is made of many tiny crystal facets, the soft-skin species of the galaxy often have a bit of trouble reading it. But Blue seems to do just fine, because after a moment he says, “The one with the burning hoops on his shoulders said that this fire emblem is the sign of your people.” 

Marty has to bite his tongue _really hard_ in order to not laugh at that description of Stakar. It's technically not a question, but he answers it anyway. 

“Yep. That's right. That guy you're talkin' about is captain Ogord, who is _my_ boss, by the way. He founded the Ravagers. That flame has a tongue for every rule of our code.” 

“Elim wanted to take it away.” Still not a question, but Marty has the feeling it's the build up to one. 

“Don't take it personal. Usually, people that want to be part of the crew have to prove themselves before they can be Ravagers. Until then, they don't get the flame.”

“Then why do I's have it? Captain Ogord said only free people can be Ravagers.” 

Okay, so he didn't expect that. Stakar probably meant it to be a reassurance to the boy, and he misunderstood. It's hard to convey something clearly when both parties have an absolutely different basis of understanding. 

“Well, that jacket belongs to you now, and if you have a flame on there, it must mean you're a free man,” he says, going for casual. Blue only huffs in frustration, and shakes his head. The lift comes to a stop, the doors rattle open with a lot more screeching than is comfortable, and they step out onto the wide open gangways surrounding the binary star cores that power the _Starhawk_. Engineers and techs are buzzing around, and Marty approaches the chief, a grizzly old Krylorian in an angry shade of red. They talk for a while, discussing the repair work that has been done, and when the plasma chambers need an overhaul. Sooner than he hoped for, and that's a big bill in their near future. 

All the while, Blue stands unmoving a step behind him and to the side, not listening in the least. He's scowling, but not in the resting-bitch-face-way he usually does. He's concentrated, mulling something over in his head. He clenches his teeth so hard that his jaw muscles visibly move. 

When Marty leaves the chief engineer to his work and continues on his rounds, he looks at Blue expectantly. 

“Come on, you just had half an hour to brood. What's eatin' ya?” The question earns him a quick glare, but finally Blue growls, “You said the new ones has to prove themselves to be Ravagers. How do I do that?” 

A sharp bark of laughter leaves the first mate, making the poor boy jump. 

“You broke out, killed your overseer, fought your way through the entire ship and sneaked onto ours. You took the captain hostage. Believe me, that's prove enough. You're a Ravager alright.” 

Blue doesn't seem convinced, but stays quiet for the rest of their trek through engineering, and rubs the Ravager flame absentmindedly.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marty and Blue have a shooting lesson, and Blue meets the little fluff ball of personality that is the chief gunner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All the thanks to my awesome roomie, who is the bestest beta and a great inspiration <3

The rest of the day progresses quietly. Blue only speaks when spoken to, does what he's told, and watches carefully.

At lunch, he eats without cutlery again. It earns him weird looks on top of the looks he'd get anyway as the captain's newest pet project, but with the first mate at his side, nobody dares say something. Marty has hoped that their little talk from this morning might have changed his views about being a person a little, but it was probably naive to think one day can undo a lifetime of conditioning. When they bring their empty dishes back, overturning the trays above the chute that collects all the eating utensils and leftovers to transport them through the high pressure dish washer beneath the galley, Marty notices that Blue's knife doesn't drop into the abyss with the unused fork and spoon. It's not on the tray. He remembers watching Blue very deliberately pushing _all_ the cutlery to the side, though, like he was making a point.  
He looks over to where they just sat, but doesn't catch anything lying at their spot. It's just a hunch, and maybe he just didn't see the knife drop down the chute, maybe it's somewhere on the floor, maybe he's being paranoid, but it would make sense that Blue wants to have a weapon to protect himself within this foreign place, surrounded by strangers that stare at him, without a guarantee that he's save except for the word of some weird man with burning hoops on his shoulders. That doesn't mean that Marty can take chances and let him run wild, though. There are rules which his charge might _knowunderstand_ by a long shot.  
They're out of the mess hall and in one of the less crowded corridors before Marty says, “You can keep it.”

"Boss?" is the tentative question when he gives no further explanations. Blue's face shows nothing but wide-eyed innocence. 

“The knife,” Marty elaborates, and gets no reaction but a raised brow over confused eyes. Damn, the boy has a poker face made of stone. He can't even take the fact that Blue doesn't make eye contact as an indication of guilt, because the boy has been staring at a spot above Marty's left shoulder when addressing him ever since their first meeting. 

"I know you kept the knife from lunch," Marty explains testily, and finally something changes. But it's not a guilty expression or annoyance at being caught that settles on his face. The emotion flickering through his eyes, barely there and then hidden away again, looks uncomfortably close to fear. 

“Don't worry, I'm not mad,” Marty hastily amends himself. Way to show who's boss. He sighs. “I won't take it away, either, but we got a code. If you attack someone with the Ravager flame on their leathers in anything but self-defense, I'll not only confiscate it, I'll also beat your ass and brig ya. You got it?”

Blue stands stiff as a board, his head bowed, and recites, “Don't stab clan in the back.” Marty nods.

“Exactly. That rule is literal as well as metaphorical.” 

Blue cocks his head a tiny fraction, but keeps quiet. Right.

“The rule means that you are not allowed to stab someone in their back, but also that you can't betray your clan to outsiders. Since you're a Ravager now, you gotta follow the code. Same goes for everyone else.”

Blue frowns, but nods. They keep walking.

~

After a very boring meeting with the quartermaster, weapons training with Mujabah is next on the list. She's in the process of schooling the crew with the new equipment, one group of about 20 people at a time. Marty is in group two, after the captain and the second shift bridge crew. It will take her a little over a week to have everyone do the training if nothing else comes up.  
When he and Blue enter the shooting range, the chief gunner notices and stops yelling at the CMO for brandishing an unsecured blaster to skip over to them. She has one of the new guns is in a one-handed grip, the barrel resting on her shoulder. 

“Heya!” she calls with her best shit-eating grin, excited to meet the newbie who is without a doubt in the top ten of the hottest new gossip. Blue, in return, bares his teeth in something that is most definitely not a smile. His hackles go up like he can smell the ball of compressed trouble that is the chief gunner. Marty decides to step in before something happens. 

"Hey, Jab. You haven't met our newest recruit yet, have you?” he says cheerfully, taking a step towards Mujabah that brings him in between the two. “Blue, this is Mujabah. She's the chief gunner on this ship, which means she's your boss." It feels weird, saying it like that, but it has an immediate effect. Blue's metal capped teeth disappear as his lips press together in a tight line, and his face goes blank. _Don't alienate the master_ , it says. He stands at attention, but bows his head and looks at the floor.

"Oooh...kay!" Mujabah says and grins uncertainly at Marty. He just shrugs. He'll tell her more later, if they can meet up without half the crew and the subject of the discussion present. For now, she knows to back off, and goes into lecture mode. 

“Well, get your asses over there so we can start, I got other shit to do later. Don't need ya slackin' around,” she says in a jovial tone. When they join the rest of the group, Mujabah takes her gun into the right grip and shows it off.

"Alrighty, fuckers. This beauty here is the X-T5, fresh from the Nova production lines, and she can do something most other guns can't. She fires a high-velocity burst of superheated plasma that will punch even through Kree armor on the first try. Walls? Exoskeletons? The hull of an m-ship? She'll wreck it. Now, she's a lady and needs to be treated like one if you don't want her to give you the finger in the middle of a firefight. Everybody take one and be careful 'cause she's a big girl. It took me half a year to secure us a batch, so you better not drop her 'cause she's too much for your stick arms! Oh, and the recoil's a real bitch, so make sure you're wearing shoulder guards. We don't want no one's joints to pop out, do we?" 

The group goes over to the benches where the X-T5 are laid out, handling them carefully as not to incur the ire of their chief gunner. They inspect the mechanisms, the weight balance, the muzzle.  
Mujabah was right, the gun is heavy. Marty weighs it a moment, then sets the butt against his shoulder and test-aims. On the other side of the room are the dummies, faces painted onto them that look disturbingly like the Collector, standing in a row in front of a thick metal wall. It's extra enforced for shooting tests with weapons like these, so nobody accidentally makes a new window to the corridors.  
Blue stands back and watches, not participating but rather taking in the people in the room he doesn't know and keeping an eye on Mujabah's every move.

“You put the plasma cartridge in back here. That here is the part where the plasma gets heated up. You'll want her to be well maintained, because if the coating on the inside is gone, the plasma will burn right through the metal and plastic parts and any kind of biological matter you dingbats don't get out of the way fast enough,” she explains while demonstrating how to load and reload.  
"Done? Kay. Now the safety is a little weird, it's up here," Mujabah continues, showing them how to flick the little lever with a thumb and make it lock down. 

“Aim... and fire!”

She blasts the head of a constipated looking Taneleer Tivan, looking very pleased with herself, and the rest try to follow her example. The guns emit a high pitched whine rather than a loud bang, and a series of acid green bursts explode from the X-T5s' muzzles. The chests of the training dummies are penetrated without a problem, fist-sized holes punched through the sturdy material. Deep dents burn into the back walls even from the shots that hit a target first.  
Belatedly Marty realizes that a firing squad shooting around merrily is maybe not an ideal environment for an ex-battle slave, but when he turns to look for Blue, his charge is still there in parade rest, doing his best not to look like he's staring at anybody but gawking at Jabs none the less. It's understandable. After all, she's energy and noise and crazy all wrapped into a bundle of lean muscle and biting mouth, and she's just picked a new target for her special brand of social interaction. 

“What the fuck, doc?” she yells, gesturing wildly at the smoking hole at the outermost edge of the safety plating. “You're supposed to aim for the mannequins, how did your shot end up all the way over there?”

“What do you want?! I'm a doctor, not a marksman!” the CMO yells back, holding his still very much unsecured gun in an angle that will end with someone's toes missing before Jabs corrects it. She's not using her inside voice. 

“Coulda fooled me, doc,” one of the navigators grumbles. “Last time I had a pinched nerve, you jabbed yer needle in right on spot. Made me sing like the Plavalaguna.”

“Believe me, that experience was just as unpleasant for me as for you. You gave the nurses tinnitus with your yowling,” doc snaps back while readjusting his grip on the gun under Jab's instructions. She barks, “Try again,” at everybody, but stays to supervise the CMO. They keep shooting for a bit, getting familiar with the weapon's weight and recoil. While there's not an unlimited supply of plasma ammunition, and the safety plating can only take so much damage, Jabs is certain they can do two groups a day until the _Starhawk_ reaches Bedlam to restock.

From time to time, Marty glances over at Blue who's watching the proceedings with a teeny, tiny sneer. Like he's very much unimpressed with all of them. He takes them in, carefully measuring their abilities, and finds them wanting. It makes Marty want to see more of what Blue can do, so he waves Jabs over, and points at his charge. She grins like he just gave her a present and wanders over, stopping in front of Blue. The once over she gives him makes Blue immediately refocus his entire attention on her again, his back going tense. 

"You gonna try, or what?" Mujabah says and holds out her gun. Despite the _or what_ , it's not a question.  
First, he looks a little startled, then suspicious. When he doesn't make a grab for the cannon, she shakes it in his face. 

“What's the matter, kiddo?”

He glares, but if it's because of the _kiddo_ or her lack of knowledge, Marty doesn't know. Probably a mixture of both.

He finally says, “The masters didn't like us handling weapons while they were in the room.”

To her credit, her grimace is only there for a split second before her face smooths into her lazy grin.

“Then I guess it's a good thing I ain't your master, right?” she says cheerfully and pushes the cannon into Blue's chest. “Here, you gotta hold it like this, and be careful. If you drop that thing on your foot it's pulp.”

For a moment, Blue gives her an unimpressed look that might have turned into an eye roll had he been anyone else. Instead, he obediently takes the offered gun and settles it into his arms with an ease that suggests he's wielded cannons of that size a million times before. And of course he has, he was a stars damned battle slave.  
He takes his spot in the line next to Marty, and when Jabs gives the next fire order, another set of rounds hit their targets. A second Tivan head sports a giant, smoking hole. Marty grins at his charge.

“Damn, boy. You got aim,” Mujabah laughs, and claps Blue on the shoulder heartily. He flinches only slightly, a minute hunching of his shoulders, but Marty spies it anyway. If Jabs noticed, she doesn't comment. His grip on the gun never wavered, and that's what matters to her.

“You're a quick learner, huh? Most people need a bit of time to get used to this girly here.”

“I've used them before,” is Blue's mumbled reply.

“Oh yeah? How come?”

He shrugs.

“Come on, you brat! This is brand new tech. Spill,” Jabs admonishes. Blue's eyes dart to Marty for a moment as if to ask permission.  
Finally Blue says, “The Nova fought better against the masters with those guns, so I took one offa corpse to figure out why. It's good for armor.” He holds it out to her, who takes it with practiced ease and a, “Oh,” that sounds a little crestfallen. But then her mood brightens again. 

“Did you train a lot with it? Have any pointers?” she asks, sniffing a chance to get her hands on capable people who might have something to share on the art of blowing shit up. She always looks for talent, since her people are often those with the most dangerous jobs on raids.

Blue only shakes his head.

“Didn't matter to me much, 'cause we's never wear armor. And it never made them Nova good enough, anyway.”

What that implies is only too clear. Marty doesn't know how much Blue picked up about the status of the Kree's war effort. Probably nothing. It would be pretty stupid to talk about losses on the battlefields in front of your slaves. Maybe gives them ideas.  
The front between the Kree Empire and the Nova has been relatively steady for the past twenty years, even though there are regular skirmishes on the border. Neither side has scored any important victories. Then the slaughter of Loxia happened a few weeks ago, where the Nova suffered a crippling defeat and lost a moon base, the doorstep into the quadrant. About 70 thousand slaves died in that battle. There's a good chance Blue's ship was coming from there.  
He's obviously survived all the fights he's been thrown into, making him a force to be reckoned with. Or damn lucky. A memory of the grin that Blue wore when he tackled Stakar, uselessly pointing an empty blaster at his would be kidnapper who was barely more than a kid, flashes through Marty's mind. He knows which option he'd settle for. 

Jabs can do the math, too. She's a smart cookie, and has fought the same amount of battles with the Kree and their slaves as Marty has. She gives Blue another once over, this time with a harder look in her eyes, even though her mouth is still grinning. Then she seems to come to a conclusion. 

“So I guess you're decent in hand to hand combat, too.”

Blue nods once more. Then Jabs leans in again, crowding him with both the spatial closeness and the amount of personality she has, wearing that manic smile that has deeply unsettled many a man, woman and other-gendered being. Blue isn't immune any more than anyone else, but he catches himself impressively fast. He settles, to Marty's trepidation, into a stance that looks familiar in a really bad way. A fighting stance, albeit a defender's. He shows his teeth, and for a second his eyes snap up to meet Mujabah's in defiance. 

"Huh,” she says in a chirpy tone, and relaxes her stance in a mood whiplash that leaves Blue really fucking confused. “You gotta show me whatchu got some time. If ya got skill and the right attitude, I'll maybe have a spot for ya," she sounds like she doesn't give a shit either way, and then wanders off without a second glance to scold some other trainees.  
"I bet he didn't wear a shoulder guard neither," is her last snappy comment, murmured to Marty in passing. Blue looks after her with a sneer and his hand discreetly hovering at the rim of his jacket, where the lining is just broad enough to slide a little knife in. 

Suddenly Marty is scared, because this is either the beginning of a beautiful friendship, or the kick-off to the beating of the century.  
One will wreak havoc on the ship, spill blood and trigger explosions and cost him his last nerve. The other would be a fist fight between the chief gunner and an ex-slave. Both is bound to get brutal. Both will somehow end with Stakar yelling at him, he just knows it.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading <3
> 
> A thousand hugs for a comment


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